


Blue Isn't The Warmest Color

by lady_of_innisfree



Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Deals, Knitting, One Shot, Other, first addition to the EU canon, making deals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-19 13:29:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11898741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_of_innisfree/pseuds/lady_of_innisfree
Summary: Sometimes, it's easier to define the deal yourself.





	Blue Isn't The Warmest Color

Depression is one thing. Depression at Elsewhere is another entirely. Nobody sleeps with any regularity in the first place. No one has Names. Much of the time passes strangely, foggily, and no one really sees each other. Eating strange combinations that aren’t technically healthy are almost standard for survival. There are rumors about a girl who lived so strongly off ramen she was salty enough to be her own protection.

As a depressed linguist, Sparrow was well and truly screwed. The Court loved languages, loved the humanities, and would have no qualms making promises in a language you only half knew. If you got the grammar wrong, you promised much more than you meant. Sparrow was very pleased to not study Mandarin: a pitched-based language meant the difference between trading away your feeling of emptiness for your feeling of free time. Scarily enough, if she got caught, she wasn't sure she'd care.

The first two years passed easily, but junior fall hit and internship applications blew in like a storm. It was still early September, but already Sparrow’s sleep schedule had broken. She’d worked on essays until 4 AM one Thursday, and was suddenly struck by hunger. Sparrow stretched, and stood to rummage her stash. One box of Easy Mac left. She picked it up. It was strangely light, as if it were… Sparrow shook her roommate awake. 

“Charlegmagne did you eat my last mac n’cheese?”

“S’too earlyyy… go back to bed.”

“Char.”

“Yeah. Ramen. Cupboard.”

Sparrow knew that was all she’d get out of her. Charlegmagne could sleep through an earthquake: getting a sentence was a miracle. She opened Char’s side of the cupboard, and cursed.

“Char, we need to grocery shop.”

Char snored.

Sparrow looked at the time. The convenience store on campus would still be open, and if she took her iron charm bracelet… She put on a jacket, real pants, and her scarf. It was a massive creation: nearly 10 feet long, with fingerless gloves at either end. She hadn't brought many things from home, but the scarf was her lucky charm.

It was still warm, but the nights were unreasonably cold, as if the Courts were not ready to switch control of the campus. The Autumn Court always had a different opinion of “warm” anyway. She made it to the store fine, bought a pack of macaroni, and walked out. On the way back, she heard hooves behind her, clattering. She slowed down. So did the hooves. She skipped like a child. The hooves pranced behind her. Shit.

“Greetings, fellow student! Would you mind my company on your walk?”

Sparrow cleared her throat. “Not at all, but it is too cold for the walk to be long.”

The voice behind her whinnied. Did that count as a laugh?

“You have warmth wrapped around you. Where did you find it?”

Sparrow was confused. The jacket? the scarf? Surely her companion had seen these before.

“You wear a necklace like none other. Where did you find it.” Her companion snorted, and she heard the shadows of chattering teeth.

“I made it myself.” And she had: her grandmother had knit a blanket for every grandchild, and stored the extra lengths in a spare basket. She’d passed on before Sparrow’s blanket was started, but left her the skein and the leftovers. Sparrow spent a year making the scarf, and worked in all the loose ends and love from the basket. It resembled something straight out of Doctor Who.

“A lovely creation. Would you allow me to try it on?”

Wearing someone else’s love, knit and tied into a scarf over hours? Christ was she screwed now. 

“Friend, if it pleases you, I would make you your own, from the softest wool I know.”

The hooves stopped.

“And what is the price of this?”

Sparrow paused. “I have applied to the school for a companion creature, a therapy dog? But it seems to be taking its time being approved.”

“In two weeks time it shall be the new moon. Perhaps I shall meet you here again, fellow student.”

Sparrow walked on, but the hooves had disappeared. Fucking hell, now she had to knit a scarf for… a horse? a talking horse? It was definitely time to make food.

~~~

Sparrow, of course, was not her real name. But it was one of the first birds she’d successfully ID’ed growing up. The others were Cardinals, which demand attention, or Crows, which were worse on this campus. Farm life wasn't nearly as exciting as a college campus soaked in The Good Folk. But farm life meant growing up with trades, animal and neighbor alike. Even more, Sparrow knew the value of labor. Six eggs and a zucchini were all well and good. A warm zucchini quiche the color of sunrise was another thing entirely. 

The next morning, she called home.

"Hey mom, it's me. Yes, I'm doing fine. Yes I'm eating enough. No I haven't heard back from any yet. Yes. Mhm. Yep. No I don't know where he put it. Hey, Any chance you could have Mr. Ehlers from down the way send me some wool? No, it's not a distraction, it's good to fidget with during lecture. No, the profs don't mind at all. Tell him there's a double batch of blackberry muffins next time I’m home. Thanks Mom."

"You... bake?"

Sparrow turned. Charlemagne had risen from bed, started tea, and was choosing her headscarf.

"Yeah, cheaper than heating in December. And filling too."

"Over break, send some of those winter winds my way."

Sparrow laughed. Charlemagne was quite happy in Dubai, but always complained about the heat. The look on her face every year when she started layering scarves was pure delight.

"Char, what would you call the warmest color?"

"If this is you coming out to me, wait until after my first cup."

"Not like that, ya goof! Like, if there was a scarf that was guaranteed to be warm and cozy, what color would it be?"

Char squinted.

"Like a magic scarf?"

Sparrow hummed.

"Probably...golden. Like the sun in July, with some mercurial reds."

Sparrow laughed. "Mercurial reds? You're wasted as a historian."

"Someday I'll be what Dan Brown always dreamed: rich and right."

Two days later, a box of wool arrived. Sparrow went down to Walmart after her last lecture. Oranges, oolong tea, jalapeños? No, sriracha. Could always add it to ramen if there's extra. Yellow curry powder, definitely, and cheesecloth bags. Trash can, paper towels, slotted spoon from the kitchen section, and Oreos. Oreos were always good for something.

The next day was Tuesday. It'd been a few years since her days in Dorm 5, but nothing too bad could happen on Tuesdays. Sparrow emptied her bookbag, and repacked. Electric kettle, wet wool in Tupperware, paper towels, shopping bags, water, alum mordant from home, and a yellow trash can. 

“Char, want to go study on the quad?”

“Sure! I’ve got two papers due next week for Byzantine Art History, and Professor Grant herself is back.” 

The quad, though not actually square, was the warmest area on campus. It outdid the greenhouse for most sunlight, a fact which annoyed the biologists to no end. Luckily, someone had the bright idea of adding solar picnic benches. It tended to collect students on lunch break and small clubs that couldn’t reserve a meeting space. Char found a table and set up camp: an arc of books, laptop in the middle. Sparrow plugged in the kettle.

First, start the water boiling. She’d need a good bit, but she had her water bottle to trek inside for refills. Next, she filled one cheesecloth bag with curry powder, and another two with tea. Heck, another three with tea. She peeled the oranges, and set the slices aside on a napkin. The peels went into a fifth cheesecloth bag, and then the five bags went into the trash can.

The kettle whistled, high and piercing. Hot water into the can, poured directly on the bags of dye. Alum mordant thrown on top, and a quick stir. Sparrow closed the can, deciding to let the dye get concentrated first. She grabbed her water bottle and the now-empty kettle.

“Char, watch these for me?”

Sparrow darted inside. Between the water fountain, her bottle, and the kettle, she could refill pretty quickly. Back outside, she set the kettle back on, and sat back to wait. She considered grabbing a handful of double-stuffed, but she still had to tie-dye the wool. Sparrow opened the tupperware she’d soaked the wool in. Wet wool always stank, no matter how much it was washed.

“What the hell, girl, are you doing alchemy out here? That stinks like a sewer in July.”

“What, too strong for your sensibilities?”

“You keep that up and my paper will smell like oranges and sheep. At least the curry smells real.”

Sparrow laughed: Char went through an ounce of curry powder the first time she cooked on campus, and the RA threatened to use the fire extinguisher on the results.

The kettle whistled, and got added to the can. Sparrow considered the results, and decided to throw the orange slices in there, figuring any extra orange could help. Next, the Sriracha was drizzled throughout the wool. Quick massage, and the wool absorbed it like a sponge. Then the whole hunk into the yellow can, and closed up. Sparrow duct-taped it closed, and sat back, considering.

“How long do you think that’ll take to cool to room temperature?”

“Two liters of boiling water in sunlight? You’ve got half an hour.”

“Perf. Oreos for me.”

~~~

Rinsing the wool in the sink afterwards was like breathing mustard gas. The water needed to run clear, but she’d gone hard on the oolong, to her current regrets. The second it was clear, Sparrow shut off the tap, and detangled the woolen mass. It was… definitely warm? The oolong/curry combo dyed the base a golden shade, far less obnoxious than she’d been afraid of. The orange bits, instead of incorporating, created stars wherever a slice had burst open. The sriracha had made a lovely swirl, and the bleed created some gorgeous shades. Almost pretty from a complicated dye-bath in plastic? Definitely a Tuesday.

Sparrow threw the lump into the box, and trekked back to the quad. Char was still there, asleep on her textbooks.

“Your majesty, wake up. The alchemist has returned, and that paper won’t write itself.”

Char mumbled something. Time to break out the big guns.

“Char, don’t move. Your bun fell out, I’ll tuck it back in your scarf.”

Charlemagne bolted upright, and her hands flew to her hijab. The offending curls disappeared in no time, and the scarf barely moved.

“How the hell do you do that?”

Char winked. “My hair acts up in the heat. Instead of going inside every two minutes at home to adjust, I learned how to wrap it up without starting over. Lots of practice. My turn to ask, though: what the heck is that?”

Sparrow looked down. “Wool, for knitting, dyed the warmest color?”

“I can’t figure you out sometimes, bird brain. Please tell me you don’t owe something to Jimothy.”

“Not Jimothy, but Someone. I’d tell you, but I don’t know the rules.”

Shrugging, Char went back to work. Had to be one of her best traits: she knew exactly where she couldn’t stick her nose, and had made it pretty far that way. History majors weren't the safest on campus either.

Wednesday morning, a spider’s web of marigold wool sat on the top of Sparrow’s textbooks. She’d emailed her professors warnings, and mentioning that Someone was involved got her the last bits of permission needed. Class after class, verbs and participles after cultures and vocab quizzes: her needles clacked through it all.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sparrow knit the mass into something manageable. Every free moment clicked and clacked. Her therapist even laughed at her Monday afternoon, but had to agree. For the past week, she’d felt more real and focused than she had in years. The constant knitting kept her too grounded to fade into a grey funk. The time flew, and Sparrow drifted along the current until.

It was the second Thursday, a new moon. Sparrow woke up to her alarm at 3:30 AM, and wrapped up in her layers. The work was tucked in her backpack, and she headed out to the corner store. She used her phone as a flashlight, and saw two cloven hooves skitter to a stop in front of her. Not a horse? Maybe a NotHorse. She shut her flashlight off and pocketed the phone. Pictures would be a bad decision.

“Greetings, fellow student! Would you mind my company on your walk?” she called out.

The voice whinnied. A nervous laugh, but definitely maybe a laugh.

“The crows tell me you summoned sunlight, and spun it into a mess.”

“I have it with me. And we tend to call it a scarf, honestly.”

Sparrow set her backpack down, and pulled out of her bag. Despite the dark, the scarf almost glowed. It was a basic stitch, but she’d never worked it this long. Horse necks were wider than human, and she hadn’t been sure she had enough wool. But the scarf, or more accurately table runner, was finished.

“A necklace like none other, warmth to wrap around you. The softest wool, with the heat of the noon sun.”

Suddenly, the voice changed. Instead of a whinny, gravel escaped.

“The crows were right.”

Something moved, and Sparrow realized the horse (Horse?) had bowed. Seeing her chance, she closed her eyes, and draped the scarf where she thought a neck would be. As she let go, she swore she could hear the voice purr.

“A favor given, and a price asked. Lovely work, Arachne. Perhaps I shall meet you again.”

The hooves disappeared, and Sparrow stepped forward. Time to go home. But. Blocking her way, a baby goat lay on the sidewalk. It was soft, caramel colored, with white socks. Around its neck, a tiny golden scarf, with a note.

“To Arachne, the weaver. Sunlight for sunlight, and warmth for warmth. His name is Icarus.”

Well fuck.

**Author's Note:**

> My first EU contribution! Probably needs beta-ing, but too late now. Many thanks to @charminglyantiquated for this wonderful @elsewhereuniversity idea. I've stolen a few side characters blatantly from @runwildwithme and her fantastic story about Feathers. Hope you enjoy!


End file.
